DETROIT — On the eve of the one year anniversary of his last concussion, Jahvid Best and the Detroit Lions got the news they’d been dreading.

The third-year running back was not cleared to return to football after a consultation with team and national doctors Monday, Oct. 15, leaving his season in doubt and his career in jeopardy.

“After today’s consultation with medical experts, including representatives from our medical and training staffs, it has been determined that Jahvid will not be permitted to return to play at this time,” Lions general manager Martin Mayhew said in a statement.

“Throughout this entire process we always have placed the highest priority on what is best for Jahvid from a health and safety standpoint. While today’s decision is disappointing from a football perspective, we fully and entirely respect and support this recommendation.”

Best has not played since Oct. 16 of last year when he suffered the second of two brain injuries two months apart.

He also had at least one serious concussion in college that cut short his career at Cal and caused several teams to remove him from their draft board.

Best, who went through a panel of tests last Monday, said last week he wouldn’t consider retirement if he wasn’t cleared to return.

“No,” he said. “Then we’ll have to sit back down and have more discussions and see where we can go from there.”

Though it seems unlikely Best will return this season — or maybe ever again — the Lions didn’t rule out a comeback this year in their statement or in comments coach Jim Schwartz made on his Monday night radio show.

“Jahvid will continue to work with our medical and training staffs with the hope that he ultimately will be cleared to return to the playing field,” Mayhew said in his statement.

Schwartz, who declined comment about Best when approached by a Free Press reporter Monday evening, said “time hasn’t run out” on Best being able to play this season.

Since he started the year on the physically unable to perform list, the Lions have 21 days from Monday to begin practicing Best and another three weeks to promote him to the 53-man roster before he’s officially lost for the year.

“It’s nothing that we can control,” Schwartz said. “As a team, as a coaching staff, as a training staff, we’ve all acknowledged that concussions are different. We have the player safety and the health of our players at the forefront and we move on. We have to prepare to play Chicago without him and if he gets cleared then we’ll get him involved.”

Bears safety Chris Conte, who roomed with Best his freshman year at Cal, told the Chicago Tribune was hit hard by the Best news Monday.

“That’s terrible news to hear,” Conte told the paper. “I know he had a bad concussion at Cal and a lot of us were worried about his health then. For the long term, this might be best for him.”

Best has said several times in recent months that he hasn’t experienced post-concussion symptoms since he returned to working out last December.

But he’s declined so far to provide details on what concussion tests have revealed and the exact nature of why he hasn’t been cleared.

Despite his history of concussions, the Lions coveted Best’s big-play ability enough that they traded up to get him with the 30th pick of the 2010 draft.

He played all 16 games as a rookie, battling turf-toe injuries on both feet, and finished with 555 yards rushing and four touchdowns. In six games last year, Best rushed for 390 yards and two scores.

The Lions were hopeful enough about his return this off-season that they did not pursue an all-purpose back as insurance in free agency or the draft.

Mikel Leshoure has started the last three games at running back since returning from a two-game suspension and the torn Achilles tendon he suffered as a rookie, and the Lions will count on a combination of Leshoure and Joique Bell in the backfield going forward.

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